Amazon India expects the Great Indian Festival 2026 to surpass previous records, with early deals launched ahead of the main sale already seeing growth of around 35-40%, Saurabh Srivastava, Vice President, Categories, Amazon India, told LiveMint in an exclusive interview.
The opened to all customers at midnight on October 8, with deals across smartphones, electronics, fashion, beauty, home, kitchen and everyday essentials.
“We generally do not look at the festive season only in terms of sales numbers. We look at several parameters, including customer frequency and the performance of in the cities where we are launching it. Wherever Amazon Now has been launched, we are seeing customers shop around three times more than they did earlier,” Srivastava said.
He added, “We also launched early deals around 10 days before the main sale, and we have already seen growth of around 35–40%. This gives us an indication that the festive season is going to go very well for us, and we expect the Great Indian Festival to break previous records.”
Amazon confident on festive readiness
Srivastava said Amazon has made extensive preparations for the festive season across three key areas: physical infrastructure and capacity, technical infrastructure including its website and backend servers, and seller efforts to bring attractive offers and inventory closer to customers.
Amazon Now expansion
Amazon has also significantly expanded its Amazon Now network during the festive season.
“We have added 20 new fulfilment centres, along with 6 new sort centres and 150 new delivery stations,” Srivastava said.
He added that Amazon Now, the company’s quick-commerce and fastest delivery option, has expanded to 120 cities. “We are adding three to four micro fulfilment centres every day,” he said.
“At this pace, we expect Amazon Now to be present in 300 cities by the end of the year,” Srivastava noted.
Amazon adds 50% more fulfilment capacity
The company has also increased its overall fulfilment capacity for the ongoing festive season.
“On the infrastructure side, we have added almost 50% more fulfilment capacity compared to last year,” Srivastava said, noting Amazon has also created 160,000 seasonal jobs across its fulfilment centres and delivery network.
Beyond physical infrastructure, has scaled its computing and website-handling capacity, worked with payment partners to prepare for higher transaction and EMI demand, and worked with sellers to configure deals and bring in inventory, he stated.
“This has been a massive undertaking over almost six months,” Srivastava said, adding that compared with previous years, “we are better prepared than ever before.”
Amazon puts SBI at the centre
Amazon says customers can get a 10% instant discount with SBI Credit and Debit Cards, as well as eligible EMI transactions.
Prime members to get extra 5% discount: Amazon
Moreover, Amazon said it will offer Prime members an additional 5% discount during this year’s Great Indian Festival, marking the first time the benefit will be available across its largest-ever selection of products, noting the extra savings will apply to lakhs of products available on the e-commerce platform.
“For the first time this Amazon Great Indian Festival, Prime members will get an extra 5% off on our largest-ever selection, offering extra savings only for Prime members. This is across lakhs of products Prime members look for on Amazon.in – delighting them with more savings on products they’re actually looking to buy this festive season,” the Amazon spokesperson said.